


Acedia

by ColorfulStabwound



Series: Scorpius Malfoy Presents the Seven Deadly Sins [3]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Acedia, Coffee Shops, Despair, M/M, sloth - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 19:34:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2882189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColorfulStabwound/pseuds/ColorfulStabwound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You have been feeding off of a steady diet of his love since you were twelve years old, intensified beyond the limits of reason since you were fifteen. Now here you were, nineteen years of life under your belt and apparently unable to survive a fortnight without the only life force you have ever known. He was your oxygen and your sustenance and although it’s only been two days, you felt like you were quite literally, starving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acedia

**Author's Note:**

> For Albus, our favorite boy in the band.

_—This is the way the world ends_ _. Not with a bang but a whimper._

 It is the third week of November when it happens. When the aching void that has lived inside of you for as long as you can remember catches up to you and nearly drops you to your knees right in the middle of London Square. It starts as a subtle itch in the back of your throat that slowly builds intensity until its crescendo shatters your waking mind and leaves you gasping for air that you cannot catch with a sickness that you cannot satiate. Strangers give you odd little glances as they pass you by, but say nothing. It is the way of the world that you live in; morbid curiosity void of any  _real_  sense of self; nobody wishing to get their hands dirty but they sure do all want a piece of that pie.

When you think that you have collected enough of yourself to move from your staggered position you hold your breath and take that first step in the eyes of countless people that don’t really want to know you as much as they want to know what you are all about. Your fingers feel swollen and rigid as they curl around the front of your coat and tug its collar tighter protectively. The sun has been playing a child’s game of hide and find for the better part of the day and it is an ironic representation of how you currently feel about your sanity.

It is no small miracle that pushes you from behind, guiding you somewhat blindly down narrowed streets that seem overgrown with the eyes of strangers that are all waiting to see you fall. Your hands shake as you attempt to fit a key into a lock that seals a door to a shared flat above a small and unassuming coffee shop. You swear quietly and curse muggles and their simplistic fascinations that seem keen on evading you and when you stumble inside the flat, the wetness at the corners of your eyes is not as much of a dream as you’d like it to be.

It is the third week of November when it happens. When the anxiety of separation cripples you right in the foyer of the flat that you secretly share with Albus, unbeknownst to the myriad of parental figures that loiter in your lives.

 

You are unsure how long you lie where you fall, although you are acutely aware of the intensity of the pain that swells and breaks inside of you. Your inner workings feel as if your own heart has splintered into a million pieces and is attempting to claw its way out of your chest, one sinewy tendon at a time.

  
Of course you are being foolish, you are hyper-aware of this simple fact. Albus has not gone and died, he is only wrapping up the last leg of tour.   _Home before you know it_  he had said. Whispered through sad smiles that failed to hide the little lies even as he spoke them. He promised to be back in your arms before Christmas holiday, it shouldn’t be this bad.

It shouldn’t be this bad.

You have been feeding off of a steady diet of his love since you were twelve years old, intensified beyond the limits of reason since you were fifteen. Now here you were, nineteen years of life under your belt and apparently unable to survive a fortnight without the only life force you have ever known. He was your oxygen and your sustenance and although it’s only been two days, you felt like you were quite literally, starving.

Morning taps against your gummy eyelids like an unassuming mistress; quiet in her intent. When you sit up you still feel it, the aching vortex in your chest that feels like the sharpest knives carving out your very soul. When you shed your clothing on the bathroom floor and step into the shower you close your eyes and lean your forehead against the cool marble tiles and you just breath.

You can do this. You can.

 

Your days become a jumble of coffee and sketchpads. You haven’t put a pencil to parchment in so long that you feel like a toddler scrawling at colored paper with chubby fingers, but you do it because it is the only thing that seems to distract you enough to keep your sanity intact. 

When Uncle Theo pays you a visit he finds you curled up in a shabby booth of the coffee shop you weep above every evening. He doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t need words to understand you. He sees so much of himself in you and it invokes so many conflicting emotions inside of him that he chain smokes like it’s his last night on earth. He knows that crease between your brows and that barely concealed despair in your eyes all to well and it kills him to see you like this; his  _big guy_  all grown up with grown up problems of your own.  You sit in silence together over endless refills of cheap coffee. He writes in a leather bound journal and you scratch feverishly at the sketchpad propped up in your lap. His presence consoles you and makes you think of Sunday mornings when you were young.  When he leaves he hugs you tight and promises you that it will get easier and his whispered words shutter your heavy eyelids as you cling to his battered leather jacket that smells faintly like your father’s cologne.

When you are alone you are consumed with thought of him. Every time you close your eyes visions of his face spring to life like muggle movie pictures against the backs of your eyelids and each time is like a cracking open a scabbed over wound that only festers instead of heals. Your flat is littered with take away coffee cups and discarded sketches that all depict the same dark hair and the same easy smile. This is beyond unhealthy obsession and you begin to wonder if there really is something wrong with you. Your father would have you committed to St. Mungo’s on the spot if he could see you now and you are quietly relieved that he has no idea where you currently reside. Of course, he could find you easily enough if he so wished it, but you know that he would never overstep the understanding that you have; at least not without a damn good reason.

It becomes increasingly difficult to leave the flat and you find yourself hugging the empty pillow beside you in the middle of the night and wishing he would linger long enough to leave and impression behind. The sun and the moon are your only calendar and with each passing cycle you strike another day off your mental tally. You tell yourself that Albus will be home soon and that he will bring your salvation and your sanity home with him. You don’t know when you became this version of yourself or why you of all people are so disturbingly dependent upon him. Maybe you are a product of your upbringing after all, although you tell yourself that this is nothing more than inflated trace effects left behind from Hogwarts.

You don’t like to think about Hogwarts, although in the hours that linger between day and night you find that it is most difficult not to think about it. You have no real business blaming Albus for your insecurities or the scars (mental or otherwise) that you endured in his absence. You really should be stronger than this. That is the mantra that you can’t quite find it in you to believe.  You’ve never been strong. Not even a little bit.

It is the first week of December when the tightness in your chest lessens slightly, as if escaping through a tiny pinprick in your outer works, desperate for a glimpse of freedom beyond.

A fire call.  _I love you. I can’t wait to see you. Oh gods, please come home soon. I can’t do this without you._

You can do this. You can.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote at the beginning of this work is the genius of Mr. T.S. Eliot and was respectfully borrowed.


End file.
